Chapter Nine #3
“I didn’t do anything women don’t do for men all the time,” Marley protested.
Maddie was glad he’d said that, and could tell from the smile on her face that Autumn was, too.
“I was a stay-at-home dad until Benjamin went to school and, now, I’m in the show, which I absolutely love — though it does mean being away from home a lot now.
I’d quit in a heartbeat if Autumn wasn’t happy about it, or if I thought Benjamin was suffering. ”
“Which is not the case,” Autumn said. “So stop worrying about it all the time.”
Autumn and Marley locked eyes and smiled at each other.
Maddie saw James watching them with intrigue, before his eyes landed on her.
She nodded, knowing he too was remembering the night their car had broken down, the night he’d wondered aloud what it must feel like to be loved the way they loved each other.
It was the same night she’d told him how their relationship had come to be, how Bowie had become convinced that they were destined to be together and had engineered their relationship despite the pain it caused him to do so.
Now they weren’t just lovers, they were best friends.
They knew each other completely and loved each other implicitly.
Maddie had never seen love like it before.
It always made her feel a little bit teary, but this was the first time she was seeing someone else bear witness to true love for the first time, and it was another person who — just like her — had never felt anything close to it themselves.
She had to turn away from him to stop herself from tearing up even more.
Predictably, Pip shattered the moment. “Is this the first time you’ve ever met an unselfish straight white man, James?” James straightened his face. “Aside from yourself, of course,” Pip added.
“I’m bisexual, actually,” James said. Maddie and her family members all turned to look at him, and nobody knew what to say.
She was disappointed in herself for being surprised.
She and James had never had a conversation about sexuality, and she’d let her bias about how a bisexual person might present keep the notion James might not be straight far from her mind.
She had thought herself a better person than that.
“I hope that’s OK?” he added when nobody spoke.
“I’m fine with you exploring the heterosexual side of your attraction as long as you don’t do it in front of my face,” Pip quipped. Everyone laughed.
“Bluebell is bisexual, too,” Emma said.
“She’s not, actually, Mum — she’s pansexual,” Marley said.
“Well, it’s the same thing, really, isn’t it?
” Emma said. Everyone except for Ben shook their heads.
Emma rolled her eyes, gesturing for the bottle of wine Maddie was still holding in her hand.
“OK, she’s pansexual, James. I don’t really give a toss, she’s just wonderful, and that’s all I care about. ”
Maddie and Marley smirked at each other.
They had tried in vain to educate their mother on various identities and, though she said she understood how important it was to learn about these things, Emma just could not get her head around it all.
She often brushed it off and said she didn’t care, she just loved everyone and that should be enough, but — as the only two straight siblings — Maddie and Marley had an unspoken pact to persevere in the name of allyship, calling her out whenever she said something ignorant.
“How long ago did we order the Chinese?” Autumn clutched her stomach.
“I don’t know, but I’m famished,” Ben said.
Pip nodded. “We need a distraction.”
“Why don’t you play your guitar for us, James?” Emma suggested.
James nodded and stood up, passing Maddie his wine glass to hold while he went to the kitchen to retrieve the instrument. He’d hardly been gone half a second when Pip gestured theatrically after him. “He’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Everyone laughed except for Maddie. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t find it funny — she always found Pip amusing, especially when he was grossly attracted to someone — but she couldn’t raise a smile this time.
To make matters worse, she knew Autumn was witnessing her lack of reaction.
Maddie tried to keep her gaze away from Autumn’s.
As her little brother comically fanned his face, gushing over James’ face, hair, dress sense, humour, Autumn shuffled closer to Maddie — they now sat side by side.
Autumn knew there was something going on. There was no way she could know the extent of it, but at the very least she knew there were feelings involved, and that made Maddie feel sick. This was not her. She was not used to this. She did not like it and she wanted to run away.
James re-entered the room carrying his guitar, and Maddie planted her gaze on the floor.
Autumn, unlike the others, was perceptive enough to notice.
As James took his seat on the arm of the armchair, Autumn put her arm around Maddie and squeezed, raising her eyebrows in a knowing manner when Maddie turned to look at her.
She waited for James to start playing and singing before she said anything, so that the words they exchanged were just between the two of them.
James was a skilled player and had a nice voice.
His long, thin fingers were quick and well-practised.
He held the guitar the same way Marley did — as though it was an extension of himself.
“Ready to be honest?” she murmured. Maddie watched James, her heart beating wildly at the sight of him. He was always sexy, but holding that guitar and blushing while he sang a love song, and very obviously struggled to keep his eyes off her, Maddie felt breathless with desire.
“Nope,” Maddie said, trying and failing to stifle a smile.
“Fair enough.” Autumn chuckled. “But I’m here for you, Mads. Whatever has happened and whatever you’re feeling, you just let me know when you’re ready to talk.”
* * *
As it turned out, Maddie was ready to talk much earlier than she’d anticipated.
Later that night — slightly drunk and fresh from a night of frolics with her family — Maddie ran into Autumn in the kitchen.
She was raiding the Chinese takeout boxes for stray chips.
Maddie joined her at the kitchen table, and the two farmed the cartons together in silence for a while.
Maddie had just said goodnight to her parents, and everyone else had gone to bed hours ago, so the house was still and quiet.
Maddie really didn’t want to talk about the way she was feeling, but she knew she needed to.
“He really likes you,” Autumn said, dipping a chip into a half-empty carton of curry sauce.
Maddie bit into a spring roll and nodded.
She knew James liked her, of course she knew.
He could hardly keep his gorgeous brown eyes off her.
He’d barely been away from Greystones since they’d spent the night at his.
He looked for excuses to touch her and was constantly trying to make her laugh.
They spent almost every waking moment together.
Maddie wondered if he knew she liked him, too.
She had given up trying to argue with herself over this.
James was the best part of her day, and that haunted her at night.
She’d never wanted any man as much as she wanted him.
Each evening, she tormented herself for hours by imagining him kissing every inch of her body.
In her head, he had done things to her no man had done before.
She’d concocted scenarios that made her blush when she thought of them outside the privacy of her bedroom.
She yearned so deeply for the weight of him upon her, one time she had to force herself into a cold shower in the middle of night to prevent herself from bursting into his bedroom and begging him to take her.
She had never been so excited. It was torturous.
This primal, visceral, soul-crushing attraction to him was ruining her life.
She couldn’t let it happen. Her original reasons for not sleeping with him had almost all evaporated — they were drilling through the work they had to do at an exceptionally fast rate and her mental health was miraculously improving now that she had someone helping her, a friend to talk to and laugh with.
However, she had a brand-new reason not to give in to her carnal desires.
A biggie. She knew, if she did, she would fall in love with him.
James was fast becoming her closest friend.
He was funny, smart and sensitive. They liked the same movies and he took note of the books she suggested he read.
Most days he was working from 8 a.m. to midnight to get through the tasks they needed to complete for the opening of the recovery retreat and the garden infrastructure for Marley and Autumn’s wedding.
She was paying him, but he accepted the money begrudgingly, and only because she insisted.
She believed him when he said he just wanted to help.
He sent her videos and memes he knew she’d find funny, left her notes around the house to make her smile.
He said nice things about her to her parents, things he knew would get back to her.
“He’s leaving in the spring,” she told Autumn. This was the crux of the problem. She could not let her feelings for James drive her actions, because they weren’t in the same car. He was in a camper van with Stevie, heading in the opposite direction.
“You could still have a little fun,” Autumn said, gleefully holding up a large chip she’d found. Maddie eyed it enviously. Autumn dutifully ripped it in half, passing her the bigger half.